


ages and ages hence

by SoVeryAverageMe



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Bonding, Experimental Baking Methods, Fandom Trumps Hate, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Late Night Conversations, Platonic Bed Sharing, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Year 3, Road Trips, Samwell Shenanigans, Team Feels, Team as Family, and Early Morning Sunrises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 00:23:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13582092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoVeryAverageMe/pseuds/SoVeryAverageMe
Summary: There are a lot of reasons to celebrate: Jack's Stanley Cup win, Bitty's new captaincy, and Lardo, Holster, and Ransom's graduation. The original Samwell gang decide to reunite on a trip to Disney World.Spoiler alert: They never get there.Instead, there's squished hotel rooms, late-night air hockey, and one random, traveling French Press. It's six best friends on the cusp of adulthood who never end up where they plan on going, but instead find themselves exactly where they need to be.





	ages and ages hence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lasenby_Heathcote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasenby_Heathcote/gifts).



> _Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—_   
>  _I took the one less traveled by,_   
>  _And that has made all the difference._

_[05-27-2017]_

**Holster:** [img attached]

 **Holster:** officially alumni!!!1

 **Bitty:** y’all im crying. where are you?

 **Jack:** Congrats! I’m sorry I couldn’t be there.

 **Ransom:** dude you have the cup to worry about

 **Shitty:** we’re outside                       

 **Bitty:** i see you!! we’ll send pics Jack!

_[06-12-2017]_

**Lardo:**!!!!!!

 **Ransom:** BROOOOOOOOOOO

 **Holster:** DUUUUUUUUUUUUDE

 **Shitty:** con-fucking-grats

 **Bitty:** you did it!!!

 **Jack:** [img attached]

 **Jack:** Thanks you guys.

 **Jack:** we should celebrate

 **Holster:** hells yeah, kegster?

 **Jack:** what about Disneyworld? We could all go down together.

 **Lardo:** wrong sport dude

 **Shitty:** lmao

 **Jack:** seriously. We’ll celebrate the Cup, graduation and Bits’ captaincy.

 **Bitty:** sounds like it could be fun!

* * *

Somehow the trip actually got planned. It took them awhile to find a date that worked and to organize travel and tickets to Disney. Instead of flying they opted to take the train because it was slightly cheaper and it reminded them all of going on roadies.

The morning the trip began, Bitty was rudely woken up by the sound of an air horn and Shitty shouting like a drill sergeant. “Everybody get their sleepy asses out of bed. We got places to fucking see and places to fucking be.”

Bitty wearily made his way to the bathroom and quickly got ready, shoving on some comfortable clothes for travel—a well-worn t-shirt and shorts.

“Good morning,” he yawned as he passed Lardo, who gave him a grumpy stare.

“It’s way too early.” She gave him a half-hearted glare, seemingly too tired to even put effort in it.

Bitty pushed her towards the bathroom to get changed. “I made some breakfast bars last night and put them in fridge, get changed and you can have some while we load up the stuff.”

“You’re lucky I’m easily bribed with food.”

The boys had already found the pans of cherry and raspberry bars and had cut them into vaguely rectangular shapes (and there was one hole that was suspiciously shaped like a hockey puck). He smiled at them, and they looked up with their mouths full.

“How are we getting to the station?” he asked. Shitty reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys and tossed them to Bitty, who barely managed to catch them with his sleep-deprived reaction speed. “Are these the keys to the roadie bus? How in the world did you get permission?”

Shitty raised a finger to his lips in a “be quiet” motion. “What they don’t know won’t kill them. Chowder is just going to drive us to the station and then take the bus right back.”

As if hearing his name, Chowder bounced into the kitchen. He grabbed the keys from Bitty, a bright smile on his face., “It’s going to be ‘swasome. I’ve never driven a bus before!”

Bitty blinked at him, but decided to just go along with it and helped Ransom and Holster start to load the bus.

Once the bus was loaded, they called for Lardo to get downstairs, threatening to leave without her. It was clear that she had gone back to bed after Shitty’s wake-up call in attempt to eke out a little more sleep. “I’ll be sleeping on the bus,” she said, as she waltzed through the kitchen, grabbing the pan of raspberry bars as she went.

Holster and Ransom shrugged at each other and went to follow her, grabbing the other pan on their way out. Shitty shooed Bitty and Chowder along too, making sure to lock the door to the Haus behind them.

Jack was waiting for them when they pulled up to the station. “I would recognize that bus anywhere.” He gave them all hugs and ruffled Chowder’s hair. They all said goodbye to Chowder, telling him to keep everything in order until they returned, and he drove off, honking the horn of the bus on the way out of the parking lot.

Lardo pulled out the train tickets that she had bought with advice from the team travel manager. “The seats are a little spread out because we bought them last minute, but we’re all in the same carriage.”

Bitty checked his watch, “We have about 20 minutes until the train leaves, so if anyone wants to get some food or explore, we can meet on the platform in 5 minutes before it leaves.” Almost, immediately everyone ran off in different directions, leaving Jack and Bitty with all of the luggage.

“Hopefully, they won’t get into too much trouble,” Bitty sighed.

Jack laughed. “Even they can’t destroy an entire train station in 20 minutes.” He gave Bitty a teasing glance, “Total anarchy takes at least half and hour.”

Bitty slapped his shoulder. “Don’t you dare encourage them.” He turned away from Jack and picked up his duffle bag, “Help me move the luggage to the platform.”

Twenty minutes later all of their luggage was piled up. It took up so much room that some of the other passengers were giving them the stink eye. Bitty saw Shitty and Lardo heading their way from the coffee shop. Lardo was happily sipping away, while Shitty was ranting about the moral and ethical decisions of supporting a chain coffee shop.

Two more minutes passed and there was still no sign of Ransom and Holster. The train pulled into the platform. Bitty had been furiously sending the missing D-Men texts to no avail. He pushed the others toward the train and told them to load up the bags, while he was going to go looking for them.

It was lucky that the two of them were so tall, because it was easy to spot them in the back of the small convenience store attached the station, arguing over the merits of different potato chip brands. Bitty grabbed the bags out of their hands, reshelved them, and pulled the two of them out the store at a run.

They slipped on board the train right as the doors were closing, the three of them breathing hard. Bitty collapsed in his seat and leaned his face on the window. He pulled his headphones on and closed his eyes to catch his breath, feeling the train move out of the station.

After a few songs he opened his eyes to survey his teammates. He shook his head in disbelief and looked around the train carriage some more.

“Ah, boys?” Slight panic leaked into his voice while the team looked up from their seats, “Where’s Jack?”

Shitty rolled his eyes and pointed across the aisle, “Bruh, he’s in front of Lardo.”

“No, _we’re_ in front of Lardo,” replied Holster.

“I thought he was behind Bitty,” Ransom said, looking up from where he was tinkering with a [mini air hockey table](https://secure.img2-fg.wfcdn.com/im/15126824/resize-h800%5Ecompr-r85/2766/27664596/Main+Street+Classics+42%2522+Mini+Air+Hockey+Table.jpg). They look behind them to see a businessman, who raised his newspaper higher and gave the group an annoyed look.

Next to him was an empty seat.

Almost as one, the group looked up as realization of the situation settled in.

“Shit. Shit. Shit!”

“This is bad. Like real fucking bad.”

“I can’t believe we left Jack.”

“Did we leave Jack or did he leave us?”

“Oh dear. This is not good.”

The situation only got worse when a train attendant entered their carriage only to see a partially constructed portable air hockey table, a man screaming expletives, three people laying in the aisle despairing over their lives, and a blond boy desperately trying to gain control.

The group was kicked off the train at the next stop. They had only gone 30 miles and found themselves stranded at the train station with their bags.

In all the chaos they still had not managed to contact Jack, so Bitty pulled out his phone and tried to call him. “Bits?”

“Jack!” Bitty sighed with relief, “Thank heavens you’re okay. I’m so sorry that we left you at the station.”

“It’s okay. It was probably my fault, anyways.” Jack let out a little snort and Bitty could imagine him giving a familiar exasperated head tilt, “There was a kid who wanted an autograph and I just can’t say no to small children in Jack Zimmermann jerseys.”

“We still should have checked that you were with us.” Bitty still felt guilty that they had all abandoned him.

“It’s okay. I got a ride and I’ll meet you at the hotel.”

“Actually,” Bitty said, looking at Ransom and Holster playing air hockey while Lardo and Shitty shouted play-by-play commentary through the train terminal, “we could also use a ride.”

“But, ah, I—” Jack sounded confused, “the train?”

“The train isn’t really an option right now,” Bitty said, “or uh, anytime in the next six months.”

“You got banned from the train?” Jack sounded astounded, “It only left the station 20 minutes ago.”

“The team kind of freaked out when we realized that you weren’t with us.”

“I guess that’s kind of sweet. My team was so worried about me that they got banned from taking the train for six months,” Jack laughed, “I was wondering why Johnson showed up with a van, instead of just a car.”

“Oh, is he with you? Say hi for me, I haven’t seen him since he graduated.” Johnson still kept in contact with his old Samwell teammates, but he had moved out of town for an internship.

“Actually he just gave me the keys and said that I’d need the extra room for plot purposes?”

“So, same old Johnson?” Bitty questioned.

“Same old Johnson.” Bitty could almost hear the smile in his voice, “I’ll be there in half an hour, try to get the team ready by then.”

They said their goodbyes and Bitty started to make Holster and Ransom pack up the air hockey table. Lardo and Shitty had gone missing, but he figured that they would show up before long. The three of them wheeled, carried, and pushed all of their belongings to the roundabout in front of the station.

Bitty banned anyone from leaving the group, not wanting to go through all that drama for a second time. Jack pulled up in a Samwell-red van, and unnecessarily honked the horn twice.

“Nice to see you all again,” Jack called from the window.

“Wipe that smug smile off your face, Mr. Zimmermann.” Bitty said, while going to open the back door to load his bags.

“Hey,” Jack held up his ends in a placating manner, “I may have missed the train, _you guys_ got kicked off of it.” They all booed him for that, while he just laughed in response.

The van had plenty of storage, but it was still a tight fit considering they needed to cram in all of their stuff and a bunch of hockey boys with legs too long for their own good. They played Tetris with their bags so that the only person who had to straddle a bag under their legs was the person sitting in shotgun. They all figured that it was a fair trade off for the privilege of sitting in front.

Lardo soon passed out in the backseat, still trying to catch up on sleep, while Ransom and Holster entertained themselves, and Shitty rapidly typed on his laptop because “law schools don’t _do_ summer.” Bitty soon swapped out with Shitty for the shotgun seat, because he had the shortest legs (sans Lardo) so the fit was less awkward.

It was hours later, and everyone was passed out in the backseat, lulled to sleep from the long drive. They’d been stuck in traffic for what felt like hours and Bitty realized that there was no way they were getting to their hotel for the night. “We need a back-up plan.”

Jack looked over at him in confusion. “What?”

“We’ve gotten stuck in every traffic jam in the state. There’s no way we’re going to make it to the hotel tonight.”

“We’ll just grab a hotel in whatever town we end up stopping at for dinner. Can you call the hotel and cancel our reservations? We might still be able to get a partial refund,” Jack said, once again filling his former-captain role with ease.

Bitty’s phone call roused Lardo from her sleep. “Wah? Why are you canceling? What happened?”

“With this traffic, it’s at least another 16 hours to get to the hotel.”

Lardo pulled out her phone. “I’ll start looking for a closer hotel. I’ll see if we have any connections from roadies that I can cash in on.” Bitty smiled at Lardo’s tendency to manage even non-hockey events, and relaxed into the seat, dozing off.

* * *

Bitty woke up as they were pulling into an all-you-can-eat barbeque place in what looked like a nondescript East Coast town. “Can we try not to get kicked out of this time?”

Ransom and Holster made affronted noises.

“It was one time!”

“Plus, we didn’t actually break any rules. They were just not prepared for post-game hockey bros.”

Bitty rolled his eyes and got out of the van, stretching his legs for the first time in a while. They walked into a surprisingly crowded restaurant and were squished into a booth that was only supposed to fit five normal sized people.

They ended up with three types of bottomless wings, a rack of ribs, and buckets of fries and coleslaw. Jack muttered something about finally being done with NHL dieting, while the boys tried to decide if they needed beef brisket too. They’re all silenced by a look from Lardo, who smiled placatingly at the waiter.

Bitty collapsed against the back of the booth, full to the brim, while Ransom and Holster were still working their way through the last of chicken wings. “Did you manage to find us a place to stay?” he asked, looking over at Lardo who was still nibbling on some fries.

Lardo opened her mouth as if to say something, but then quickly shut it and scrunched up her face. “It’s kind of complicated.”

Shitty took his attention away from Ransom and Holster stuffing themselves. “It’s not that hard Lards. Do we have a place to stay or not?”

“I got us a room,” Lardo nodded, “as in a singular room.”

Everyone looked up at her and started firing questions simultaneously. Bitty shouted at them, trying to get control of the situation. Then he directed his attention to Lardo and tried to clarify, “You only got us one room?”

“It turns out there’s some musical festival that’s filled all the hotels in a 75-mile radius. We were lucky to even get one room.”

Jack looked perplexed. “So what are we supposed to do.”

“There’s two beds and a pull-out sofa. We’ll just have to squish,” Lardo said, rolling her eyes.

Holster and Ransom looked as if they wanted to argue, but Bitty interrupted them. “I guess we don’t have a choice. We all lived together in The Haus, right? How bad could it be?”

* * *

It was bad. There was barely enough room to move around, and when the sofa bed was pulled out, they literally had to crawl over it to get to the bathroom. There was a six-inch step to get into the bathroom, which was so small that could touch both walls at the same time. Not to mention that the showerhead only came up to the top of Holster’s chest. The room only had two outlets and so they had to set up an elaborate system of cords and chargers that cannibalized their laptops as a power source so that they could get extra USB ports. The Haus looked like a five-star accommodation compared to the hotel room.

They drew straws to decide who was sharing with whom, since everyone wanted Lardo because she was the smallest. In the end Ransom got lucky and pulled Lardo’s name, but the rest of the gang exiled them to the sofa bed as punishment. Shitty and Bitty got paired together, but the unluckiest duo was Jack and Holster, who had to fit their six-foot bodies into one bed.

“I need to do laundry tomorrow” Holster said from where his head was pillowed on Jack’s chest. The two of them had figured out that the only way the two of them were going to fit was if one of them literally laid on top of the other. Likewise, all the other pairs had found cuddling to be the most comfortable position and if they all got a good cuddling session out of it no one had to know. (They had also imposed a no pictures policy for the night).

“It’s only been one night,” Shitty said.

“I thought I’d be able to do laundry at the hotel, so I ditched my clothes to make room for the air hockey table. Ransom and I both did.”

Bitty piped up from below Shitty’s arm. “I need to do laundry too. I used my packing space for baking essentials.”

“Did anybody bring actual clothes?” Shitty yelled, exasperated. Jack looked offended at the accusation, while Lardo had a guilty look on her face. Shitty sighed. “Well, I guess we’re going to have to find a laundromat tomorrow.”

Ransom was forced to turn out the lights because he was the only one that could reach them without crawling over another person. They settled down into sleep on the slightly lumpy sheets, but with friends close by.

* * *

Bitty woke up the next morning with a mouth full of Shitty’s hair. He was the first one to wake up and he took a moment to admire all of his friends sleeping peacefully around him. He felt Shitty pull him tighter from where his arm circled Bitty’s torso.

The morning sun was peeking through the semi-transparent curtains. Lardo had star-fished out on the couch and at some time during the night, Ransom had fallen on the floor  taking all of the blankets with him. Across from him, Bitty could see Holster still asleep on top of Jack, who was already awake. He was trying to scroll through his phone, but his arm was trapped at an awkward angle under Holster’s bicep.

“Do you want some coffee?” Bitty whispered across the small gap.

“You’re a lifesaver Bits.”

He detangled himself from Shitty, leaving a pillow in his stead, and tried to remember where they put the small coffee pot. They had unplugged it and moved it out of the way in an attempt to utilize more of the counter space.

Bitty scrounged around the room as quietly as he could before finding the pot crammed under the sofa bed. He gave it a quick rinse of water and set it to boil. “The motel didn’t provide any coffee, but I should have enough instant stuff to go around.”

The rest of the occupants of the room had stirred awake at the commotion. “Don’t drink that shit. I brought the French Press and some coffee grounds.” Ransom said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“We don’t own a French coffee press. I would know,” Bitty said, being familiar with every nook and cranny of The Haus kitchen.

“Holster and I keep it in the attic. We used to have fancy coffee when we were binging Gossip Girl together, and we wanted to feel like rich kids.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you brought it?” Jack questioned, shoving Holster off of him now that he was awake.

Holster groaned has he hit the floor. “You never know when you’ll need a French Press, plus it fit perfectly next to the air hockey table.”

They took turns using the bathroom while Bitty filled their thermoses with coffee. They attempted to tidy up the room, but it was still in disarray from squeezing six people into it. After a quick fast-food-chain breakfast, they mapped their way to the closest coin-operated laundromat.

It was two hours away.

* * *

The group walked into the desolate laundromat, whose only employee barely spared them a glance before looking back down at their magazine.

“Does anyone have any coins?” Shitty asked, digging into his pockets.

“Nobody carries change anymore, Shits.”

“Then why are we even here, Lards?”

Bitty looked around. “There doesn’t seem to be any way to get change.” He pursed his lips in thought. “That seems to be a design flaw of a _coin-operated_ laundromat.”

The sole employee seemed annoyed and looked up from their magazine. “Just go next door and use the change machine at the arcade.”

In the blink of an eye Ransom and Holster locked eyes and bolted out of the door. Lardo and Shitty shrug and follow them out. “I’ll check on the children and get some change. You stay here with the clothes,” Jack said, leaving Bitty alone with the sour employee. He tried to give an apologetic look, but was met with a scoff, so instead he just sat on a bench facing away from the counter.

He scrolled mindlessly through his phone until he heard the bell above the door ring and turned to see Jack striding back in. “What took you so long?”

“They were being difficult and kept stealing the change to go play games.” Jack dropped some quarters in his hand and went to the detergent vending machine while Bitty loaded up the washer.

After fiddling with the settings, they finally got it to start the rinse cycle (with no help whatsoever from the employee). The two of them sat on the bench in front of the washer and stared at the clothes hypnotically rotating in the machine. “We could set a timer and head to the arcade?” Bitty offered.

Jack laughed. “Honestly, it’s only a matter of time before they get kicked out. I’m the one that always has to put up with the disappointed looks like they’re my children and it’s _my fault_ for their behavior.”

“Come on.” Bitty pulled on his hand. “That’s what this trip is for, right? Bonding and having fun.”

“Says the person that got banned from the train.”

“When you think about it, it was really your fault for missing the train. We wouldn’t have freaked out if you were there.” Bitty tugged Jack up and headed out the door, setting a timer on his phone with his other hand.

When they entered the arcade, it was easy to spot their group. It was mostly empty, except for a few kids who looked like they were playing hooky. Ransom and Holster were playing a creative mix between HORSE and skeet ball that involved a lot of yelling and attempted trick shots. On the other end of the spectrum, Shitty and Lardo were trying to win as many tickets as possible, each had tickets bursting out of their pockets.

Bitty walked over to the change machine, stuck a ten in, and filled his pockets with quarters. He walked deeper into the arcade, Jack at his tail. “Come on Mr. NHL, let’s see if there’s anything in here that you can beat me at.”

“You’re on, Bits.”

* * *

It was a miracle that they didn’t actually get kicked out of the arcade (There was a close call when Shitty slid across the air hockey table in victory). They almost forgot to put their clothes in the dryer, because Bitty was in the middle of a vicious DDR battle against Jack when the alarm went off.

After running to put the clothes in the dryer, they returned to the arcade and played well into the afternoon. By the end, the group won enough tickets to pick out literally any prize that the arcade offered.

They ended up choosing a NERF blaster in order to “up their defenses against the LAX house” and they spent their few extra tickets on some individually wrapped candy and a couple of cheap plastic figurines. The laundry was still a little damp, but they took it anyways, as the employee was still giving them the evil eye. They stuffed their clothes and prize into the van (now an even tighter fit) and finally got back on the road.

At this point, they were still behind schedule and realized after driving for an hour that they a) didn’t have any place to stay, and b) all they had eaten since breakfast was overpriced arcade food and candy.

It was past 9PM when they pulled into a small-town’s only 24-hour diner. After they ordered food, they tried to make a game plan for the night. It was too late to get a hotel and they were in an area that none of them were familiar with.

Their conversation lulled when their food arrived. In front of them were giant portions of classic diner food: burgers, open-faced sandwiches, and chicken-fried steak. “Are you here for that camping site?” The waitress asked. She was a kind old lady who wiped her hands on her apron. At their confused look, she elaborated, “All you young folks are going to that mountain site to do… well whatever young’ins do out in the woods these days.”

Lardo gave an inquiring look, and elbowed Holster in the side. He swallows the large bite he had stuffed into his mouth. “Ah, what camping site?”

“The one that’s about an hour and half outside of town.” She pursed her lips, “Although most people don’t come until later into the summer.”

Ransom looked like he was going to make an argument about ghosts when Holster stomped on his foot. Bitty distracted from the situation, “Do you think you’d be able to give us directions?” The waitress smiled and jotted down directions on a napkin in large cursive handwriting.

The group finished their meal and by some miracle were able to make reservations for the camping site online. According to their waitress, “Little Susie was on a real coding kick this year. Gave every business in town their own website with an email address and everything.”

The diner was not the only 24-hour business in town; there was a large chain supermarket that ran all hours of the day for the truckers that passed through on their way to bigger cities. They piled out of the van in a huge desolate parking lot that only had a few semi-trucks parked at the entrance along with the beat-up pick-up truck that probably belonged to the employee on duty. Jack grabbed a cart and they trolled through the aisles to stock up for their spontaneous camping trip.

There was something eerie about walking through an empty superstore. Every sound seemed to echo throughout the entire store and every so often they’d catch a glimpse of the lone worker on night shift, but they were gone by the time they turned their gaze upon them.

Bitty rubbed his eyes, fighting off a yawn, while Ransom and Holster reignited their argument about potato chip flavors. Lardo slipped off to get supplies for s’mores (although none of them knew how to make a campfire), while Shitty swung an arm around his shoulders. “How ya doing Bits?”

“Been a long day.” So long, in fact, that Bitty’s mouth spoke before he even realized it. “Hey, I should make pie. Look—there’s a sale on apples.”

Shitted laughed. “You know we fucking love your pies.” He ruffled Bitty’s hair. Maybe it was because he was tired and wasn’t fully rational now, but Shitty suddenly seems like the most brilliant person in the world to him.

He was going to make a motherfucking pie.

* * *

A couple of pounds’ worth of apples, some spices, some cornstarch, and a pack of butter were all he needed for the filling. He glared at the pre-made pie dough for ten minutes before reluctantly adding it to his cart, because he had left his best pastry cutter at The Haus.

He found Jack, who was trying to wrangle Ransom and Holster, and told him he was buying his ingredients separately so he could prepare his “Radiator Pie.” Jack held the keys out, but looked betrayed that he was being abandoned. It almost made Bitty reconsider, but he grabbed the keys out of Jack’s hand when they heard a crash from the next aisle over. It was followed by Lardo shouting expletives.

Bitty hummed and twirled the keys around his finger with the grocery bag dangling from his other hand. After opening the trunk of the car, he dug around until he found the box that held all of his baking supplies.

He diced the apples with a practiced hand, unaffected by the car’s dim light. He tossed the diced apples with a secret spice mix, a pinch of cornstarch, and a pat of butter. The mixture was then poured onto the pie crust and wrapped so that it was more of a turnover than a pie, but oh well.

The boys returned right as Bitty was wrapping the pastry in several layers of aluminum foil. They loaded the groceries into the van, and Bitty signaled Jack to pop the hood open. He carefully propped the aluminum foil package in between the machinery, prayed for the best, and slammed the hood shut.

Lardo was sitting next to Jack, phone flashlight on and trying to decode the directions from the waitress. Bitty found himself squished in between Shitty and a pile of bags. Holster threw three packages of Oreos at him, Shitty got a pack of beer, and the D-Men had a mountain of potato chips bags in between them.

As Jack pulled out of the parking lot, the rest of them dug into the snacks. Chip bags exploded with a loud bang, beers were passed around, and Oreos were tossed around the interior of the car into the back of heads. Lardo put the radio on, turned it up, and they screamed to every song.

The roads were mostly empty at this time at night, only lit by their headlights. In the chaos of the van, it felt like they were the only people in the world. Bitty looked into the front mirror and caught a glimpse of Jack smiling at their antics, but he was pulled away by Shitty’s argument about Double Stuf versus original Oreos.

Bitty didn’t remember nodding off, but it must have happened sometime after Ransom sprayed beer all over the van, because he woke up to Jack slamming the door, smelling of beer and covered with crushed Oreos. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, gently pushed Shitty off of his shoulder, and leaned him against the window.

As quietly as he could, he slipped out of the car and joined Jack outside. He found him sitting on the ground in front of the van. The view was… it was incredible.

They were at the top of the hill, overlooking a valley in between mountain ranges. The night was clear and the stars were bright without the light pollution of the city. They went on forever and ever into the distance.

It was vast and beautiful. Bitty felt as if the sky held all the hopes and dreams of the world and for a brief moment he was allowed to be apart of it all.

“Fuck…” Shitty’s voice was laced with awe, his eyes as wide as saucers as he pulled himself out of the car. His outburst had woken everyone else up and they slowly made their way out of the van to sit next to Bitty and Jack.

The six of them sat in silence, taking in the world around them. The stars, the trees, the world, in that moment, felt like it had been crafted specifically for them. Shitty leaned against Jack, who leaned against Bitty, who leaned against Lardo and so and so on, until they were one amorphous blob, breathing in time with each other, and in time with the world around them.

The silence was broken by some suspicious giggling from their resident D-Men, who were at the end of the line. Soon, they were back at the van, pulling out the air hockey table and setting it up on the grass. Lardo laughed at seeing them try to balance the table on the uneven ground.

The infiniteness of the universe focused in until its vastness was forgotten and all that was left was six friends, a proffered van, and an air hockey table in the middle of nowhere. Jack pulled Bitty to his feet and they made their way back to the van. They turned their backs from the mountains and stars to something that felt a lot more like _home._

Shitty found a black dry erase marker under one of the seats and started to write a tournament bracket on one of the van windows. He declared it, “Samwell’s First Annual Air Hockey Under the Stars” tournament. They were a little tipsy, a lot tired, and so far away from humanity that they could scream as loud as they wanted.

Into the night, they played on.

* * *

Bitty woke to the first rays of the morning sun as they streamed through the van’s windshield. He was in the shotgun seat, curled up against the window in the reclined seat with a blanket laid over him. After losing to Holster and being knocked out of the tournament, he must have fallen asleep. Someone must have carried him back to the car.

Stretching his arms and twisting his back to get the soreness out of it, he looked around the van to see that all the boys were still asleep, but that Lardo was missing and the driver’s seat was empty.

He hung the blanket in front of the windshield to try to keep some of the sunlight out, and then climbed out of the van, slamming the door as quietly as possible. The morning air was fresh compared to the stale air of the van and he rubbed feeling back into his legs while looking around for Lardo.

He took a moment to enjoy the last dregs of the sunrise before he turned around and spotted Lardo sitting on a small hill behind the van. After making his way around the van, he realized that she had a small canvas on the ground in front of her and was picking through a box of oil pastels.   

She looked up at the sound of his footsteps and smiled at him. “So this is why you had to wash your clothes with us yesterday? You had to make room for art supplies?” he asked, trying not to break the quiet atmosphere of the morning light

“You never know when inspiration will strike.” She laughed, before leaning back and breathing in the morning air, admiring the view around her.

“Drawing the sunrise?” Bitty said as he stared at the the sun peeking over the mountains, bringing the hope of a new day.

Lardo pursed her lips and tilted her head to look at him, gently shaking her head side to side. “No… well, not exactly.” She picked up the canvas from the ground, where it was hidden by the grass, and tilted it in Bitty’s direction. The piece was—

“It’s us.” His voice broke as he spoke. He glanced up to Lardo’s smiling face before returning to focus on the drawing. It wasn’t her usual art style, but the exaggerated lines and saturated colors captured the liminal space between dream and reality. The focus of the drawing was the van and their spontaneous air hockey tournament. They were drawn so sharply and _real_ that Bitty could practically see Jack’s eye crinkles and hear Shitty’s laughter. There was the the outline of the mountain range and valley behind them, but the colors faded into an ambiguous swirl. There was the deep orange of the sunset, the black of the night, and the light pink hues of the early morning.

It placed them in this one moment and time, and yet to anyone else it would place them nowhere in specific. The drawing captured the finiteness of this moment and the vastness of their feelings while they were there. It was everything.

“Lards,” he couldn’t keep the emotion out of his voice, “It’s amazing. You should put it in your art show.”  

Lardo reached out and grabbed him, pulling him close and resting her head on his shoulder. “Nah, Bits. I think that this one is just for us.” Lardo reached for the oil pastels once more and added a few last details. The two of them sat in comfortable silence, enjoying the world that was coming to life around them.

* * *

Jack was the next to wake up, but Bitty could tell by how loudly he slammed the door that the rest of the boys would quickly follow.

He nudged Lardo, who was staring off in the distance, with his elbow to and nodded back towards the van. “There’s still pie under the hood. We better get to it before they do.”

Lardo hid her laugh behind her hand. He helped her to his feet, carefully grabbed her box of oil pastels while she carried the canvas, and the two of them made their way down the hill.

When they got down to the van, everyone was stretching and looking through the leftover snacks for food. Lardo gently put the canvas away into a carrying tote and repacked the oil pastels into her art supplies while Bitty went to pop the hood.

The foil was slightly misshapen and lumpy where it was resting against the metal, but when Bitty unwrapped it the pastry dough was cooked all the way through. The rest of the group crowded him, ready to dig in with their bare hands, but Bitty protected his precious radiator pie until he found a package of plastic party forks that they’d bought at a gas station somewhere.

Bitty found a spare pan in his baking supplies and plopped the pie out of the tin foil into it. He placed the pan on the air hockey table and they unceremoniously dug in. There was moaning of how delicious it was, crumbs flying everywhere, and the entire pie seemed to disappear in mere minutes.

The pie was not the most complicated pie he had ever made. It would win no contests for beauty and if he let the pie rest in his mouth he could taste the faint aftertaste of gasoline. It was by no means a perfect pie, but for the six of them, hidden away in the woods far from home, they could imagine that no better existed.

* * *

The six of them loaded into the van after breakfast, packing all of their things away in what seems to be less and less room. They drove back into town to fill up the gas tank and stock up on snacks before planning to hit the road again.

“Maybe we should just head back to Samwell.” Bitty said while they were waiting for the tank to fill. Ransom and Holster had just returned with a convenience store haul of carbs and high fructose corn syrup.

“What?” Holster asked, while stuffing an entire Twinkie into his mouth.

“By the time we get to Disney, Jack will have to go back to work, you guys will have to start the lease on your apartment, and I’m supposed to go home to see my parents.” Bitty smiled. “And, anyways, didn’t we already accomplish what we set out to do?”

The group looked skeptical. “Uhh, Bits?” Holster asked, “Did you get some gasoline in your piece of radiator pie, because we literally just spent the night in a borrowed van in the middle of nowhere.”

“Yeah, Bro. Does this look like Disney World to you?” Lardo waved her hand toward the rest of the gas station, whose only other customers were a few truckers.

“Was it ever really about Disney World?”

“I’m pretty sure it fucking was,” Shitty said.

Jack looked confused, but also had a thoughtful look on his face. “It was originally about all of celebrating together, wasn’t it?”

“We said we wanted to spend time together, go on an adventure, and hang out like old times.” Bitty smiled and looked at the group with a helpless adoration. “I think that this wasn’t the trip that we planned, but it might be a lot more… _us._ ”

Bitty was suddenly attacked by a barrage of hair ruffles and hugs as he was pulled out of the car and lifted onto the pavement of the gas station. He was kind of glad that there was no one around to see the spectacle.

Everyone was laughing and giggling, high on friendship and sleep deprivation. “So? Are we going home then?”

“Fine by me. We don’t need to support fucking corporations.” The rest of the team agreed and they started to make plans to get back to Samwell. The conversation quickly spiraled into random tangents.

Bitty’s phone buzzed and he looked away from the scene to check it. He scrunched his face in confusion at the text.

Shitty noticed the perplexed look on his face. “Something wrong, Bits?” he asked while nudging him in the shoulder.

“I just got a text from Coach Hall asking if I knew where the bus was.” Their conversation has caught the attention of the rest of the van.

“What do you mean? Chowder should have returned the bus days ago.” Ransom raised his eyebrows. “They shouldn’t have even noticed it was gone.”

Lardo’s phone buzzed, her eyes widening as she read the text, “I… I think I might know where the bus is.”

“Nothing good has ever come out of that tone of voice.” Shitty said, trying to read over her shoulder.

Lardo put her phone down and looked at the rest of them. “Nobody panic, but—”

“Already panicking.” Ransom said, starting to curl in on himself like the delicate marine coral he was.

“Just tell us, Lards,” Jack interjected, “It can’t be _that_ bad. How much trouble could they have gotten into?”

She let out a nervous little giggle at that. “Ford just sent me a picture…” She trailed off.

“And?” Bitty questioned.

“She’s with the frogs and the tadpoles… and the bus,” Lardo gulped and braced herself, “… in Mexico.”

“Mexico?” Bitty gave a panicked laugh. “Please tell me you didn’t just say Mexico?”

Lardo still looked apprehensive. “They didn’t want to tell us, but…” she shook her head as if in shock and shrugged helplessly, “...it turns out Whiskey doesn’t have his passport.”

Holster coughed in what was either shock or laughter. “Please tell me that they didn’t smuggle Whiskey into Mexico?” Lardo pursed her lips and scrunched up her face. She looked down at her lap, avoiding the question.

Bitty took a deep breath and felt the true weight of captaincy settle onto his shoulders. “Looks like our trip was going to be cut short regardless of our decision.”

“So what do we do Captain?” Jack asked with a slight smirk on his face.

“We head back to Samwell and fly to Mexico to get my team back before they’re arrested.” Jack nodded at him and started to pull out of the gas station. “Lardo, get Ford to keep the boys under control. Also, someone text Dex and make sure he’s okay—I can’t imagine he agreed to this on his own free will.”

Bitty shook his head in disbelief and fell back against his seat, trying to figure out how he ended up with a team in a different country. The rest of the team was hard at work. Jack was trying to figure out if they could make a straight shot back to Samwell if they took shifts and drive through the night. Lardo was speaking to Ford, who was the only one of the runaways that has an international phone plan. The rest of the team had assigned themselves jobs—Holster started researching plane tickets, Shitty looked up the legality of smuggling a person into Mexico, and Ransom started a spreadsheet of Bitty’s captaincy.

With is old team at his back, and his new team (far, far) in front of him, Bitty thought that the next year was certainly going to be an adventure.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> This is such a late gift for [FTH 2017.](https://fandomtrumpshate.tumblr.com/), but (a year later) I finally got it out! It was such a delight to write and return to the omgcp characters that I haven't written in a while. 
> 
> Beta'd by the wonderful [Pugglemuggle](http://pugglemuggle.tumblr.com/) and [lacksley](http://lacksley.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Hang out with me on tumblr [here.](http://soveryaverageme.tumblr.com/)


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